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Paul Weirich [104]Paul Robert Weirich [1]
  1.  96
    Realistic Decision Theory: Rules for Nonideal Agents in Nonideal Circumstances.Paul Weirich - 2004 - New York, US: OUP Usa.
    Decision theory aims at a general account of rationality covering humans but to begin makes idealizations about decision problems and agents' resources and circumstances. It treats inerrant agents with unlimited cognitive power facing tractable decision problems. This book systematically rolls back idealizations and without loss of precision treats errant agents with limited cognitive abilities facing decision problems without a stable top option. It recommends choices that maximize utility using quantizations of beliefs and desires in cases where probabilities and utilities are (...)
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  2.  98
    Causal decision theory.Paul Weirich - 2009 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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  3. Unsharp Sharpness.Nils-Eric Sahlin & Paul Weirich - 2013 - Theoria 80 (1):100-103.
    In a recent, thought-provoking paper Adam Elga argues against unsharp – e.g., indeterminate, fuzzy and unreliable – probabilities. Rationality demands sharpness, he contends, and this means that decision theories like Levi's, Gärdenfors and Sahlin's, and Kyburg's, though they employ different decision rules, face a common, and serious, problem. This article defends the rule to maximize minimum expected utility against Elga's objection.
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  4.  93
    Decision instability.Paul Weirich - 1985 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 63 (4):465 – 472.
    In some decision problems adoption of an option furnishes evidence about the option's consequences. Rational decisions take account of that evidence, although it makes an option's adoption changes the option's expected utility.
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  5. Utility tempered with equality.Paul Weirich - 1983 - Noûs 17 (3):423-439.
  6. Expected utility and risk.Paul Weirich - 1986 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37 (4):419-442.
    The rule to maximize expected utility is intended for decisions where options involve risk. In those decisions the decision maker's attitude toward risk is important, and the rule ought to take it into account. Allais's and Ellsberg's paradoxes, however, suggest that the rule ignores attitudes toward risk. This suggestion is supported by recent psychological studies of decisions. These studies present a great variety of cases where apparently rational people violate the rule because of aversion or attraction to risk. Here I (...)
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  7.  45
    Rational Responses to Risks.Paul Weirich - 2020 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    A philosophical account of risk, such as this book provides, states what risk is, which attitudes to it are rational, and which acts affecting risks are rational. Attention to the nature of risk reveals two types of risk, first, a chance of a bad event, and, second, an act’s risk in the sense of the volatility of its possible outcomes. The distinction is normatively significant because different general principles of rationality govern attitudes to these two types of risk. Rationality strictly (...)
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  8.  12
    Decision Space: Multidimensional Utility Analysis.Paul Weirich - 2001 - Cambridge University Press.
    In Decision Space: Multidimensional Utility Analysis, first published in 2001, Paul Weirich increases the power and versatility of utility analysis and in the process advances decision theory. Combining traditional and novel methods of option evaluation into one systematic method of analysis, multidimensional utility analysis is a valuable tool. It provides formulations of important decision principles, such as the principle to maximize expected utility; enriches decision theory in solving recalcitrant decision problems; and provides in particular for the cases in which an (...)
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  9. Conditional utility and its place in decision theory.Paul Weirich - 1980 - Journal of Philosophy 77 (11):702-715.
    Causal decision theory attends to probabilities used to obtain an option's expected utility but for completeness should also attend to utilities of possible outcomes. A suitable formula for an option's expected utility uses a certain type of conditional utility.
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  10. Hierarchical maximization of two kinds of expected utility.Paul Weirich - 1988 - Philosophy of Science 55 (4):560-582.
    Causal decision theory produces decision instability in cases such as Death in Damascus where a decision itself provides evidence concerning the utility of options. Several authors have proposed ways of handling this instability. William Harper (1985 and 1986) advances one of the most elegant proposals. He recommends maximizing causal expected utility among the options that are causally ratifiable. Unfortunately, Harper's proposal imposes certain restrictions; for instance, the restriction that mixed strategies are freely available. To obtain a completely general method of (...)
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  11.  92
    Economic Rationality.Paul Weirich - 2004 - In Alfred R. Mele & Piers Rawling (eds.), The Oxford handbook of rationality. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Weirich examines three competing views entertained by economic theory about the instrumental rationality of decisions: the first says to maximize self-interest, the second to maximize utility, and the third to satisfice, that is, to adopt a satisfactory option. Critics argue that the first view is too narrow, that the second overlooks the benefits of teamwork and planning, and that the third, when carefully formulated, reduces to the second. Weirich defends a refined version of the principle to maximize utility. A broad (...)
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  12. Models of Decision-Making: Simplifying Choices.Paul Weirich - 2014 - Cambridge University Press.
    The options in a decision problem generally have outcomes with common features. Putting aside the common features simplifies deliberations, but the simplification requires a philosophical justification that this book provides.
     
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  13. (1 other version)Belief and acceptance.Paul Weirich - 2004 - In Belief and acceptance. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. pp. 499--520.
    The attitudes of belief and acceptance are similar but differ in important respects such as their relation to degree of belief.
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  14. Conditional probabilities and probabilities given knowledge of a condition.Paul Weirich - 1983 - Philosophy of Science 50 (1):82-95.
    The conditional probability of h given e is commonly claimed to be equal to the probability that h would have if e were learned. Here I contend that this general claim about conditional probabilities is false. I present a counter-example that involves probabilities of probabilities, a second that involves probabilities of possible future actions, and a third that involves probabilities of indicative conditionals. In addition, I briefly defend these counter-examples against charges that the probabilities they involve are illegitimate.
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  15. The St. Petersburg gamble and risk.Paul Weirich - 1984 - Theory and Decision 17 (2):193-202.
    One resolution of the St. Petersburg paradox recognizes that a gamble carries a risk sensitive to the gamble's stakes. If aversion to risk increases sufficiently fast as stakes go up, the St. Petersburg gamble has a finite utility.
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  16.  86
    Interpersonal utility in principles of social choice.Paul Weirich - 1984 - Erkenntnis 21 (3):295 - 317.
    This paper summarizes and rebuts the three standard objections made by social choice theorists against interpersonal utility. The first objection argues that interpersonal utility is measningless. I show that this objection either focuses on irrelevant kinds of meaning or else uses implausible criteria of meaningfulness. The second objection argues that interpersonal utility has no role to play in social choice theory. I show that on the contrary interpersonal utility is useful in formulating goals for social choice. The third objection argues (...)
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  17. Initiating coordination.Paul Weirich - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (5):790-801.
    How do rational agents coordinate in a single-stage, noncooperative game? Common knowledge of the payoff matrix and of each player's utility maximization among his strategies does not suffice. This paper argues that utility maximization among intentions and then acts generates coordination yielding a payoff-dominant Nash equilibrium. ‡I thank the audience at my paper's presentation at the 2006 PSA meeting for many insightful points. †To contact the author, please write to: Philosophy Department, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211; e-mail: [email protected].
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  18.  39
    Mild Contraction: Evaluating Loss of Information Due to Loss of Belief.Paul Weirich - 2005 - Mind 114 (455):753-757.
    This book review describes and evaluates Issac Levi's views about belief revision.
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  19.  25
    Collective Rationality: Equilibrium in Cooperative Games.Paul Weirich - 2009 - Oxford, England and New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press USA.
    Groups of people perform acts that are subject to standards of rationality. A committee may sensibly award fellowships, or may irrationally award them in violation of its own policies. A theory of collective rationality defines collective acts that are evaluable for rationality and formulates principles for their evaluation. This book argues that a group's act is evaluable for rationality if it is the products of acts its members fully control. It also argues that such an act is collectively rational if (...)
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  20.  28
    A bias of rationality.Paul Weirich - 1981 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 59 (1):31 – 37.
  21.  52
    Risk as a Consequence.Paul Weirich - 2020 - Topoi 39 (2):293-303.
    Expected-utility theory advances representation theorems that do not take the risk an act generates as a consequence of the act. However, a principle of expected-utility maximization that explains the rationality of preferences among acts must, for normative accuracy, take the act’s risk as a consequence of the act if the agent cares about the risk. I defend this conclusion against the charge that taking an act’s consequences to comprehend all the agent cares about trivializes the principle of expected-utility maximization.
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  22.  59
    A decision maker's options.Paul Weirich - 1983 - Philosophical Studies 44 (2):175 - 186.
    An agent's options in a decision problem are best understood as the decisions that the agent might make. Taking options this way eliminates the gap between an option's adoption and its execution.
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  23.  34
    Risk's Place in Decision Rules.Paul Weirich - 2001 - Synthese 126 (3):427-441.
    To handle epistemic and pragmatic risks, Gärdenfors and Sahlin (1982, 1988) design a decision procedure for cases in which probabilities are indeterminate. Their procedure steps outside the traditional expected utility framework. Must it do this? Can the traditional framework handle risk? This paper argues that it can. The key is a comprehensive interpretation of an option's possible outcomes. Taking possible outcomes more broadly than Gärdenfors and Sahlin do, expected utility can give risk its due. In particular, Good's (1952) decision procedure (...)
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  24.  11
    Equilibrium and Rationality: Game Theory Revised by Decision Rules.Paul Weirich - 1998 - Cambridge University Press.
    This book represents a major contribution to game theory. It offers this conception of equilibrium in games: strategic equilibrium. This conception arises from a study of expected utility decision principles, which must be revised to take account of the evidence a choice provides concerning its outcome. The argument for these principles distinguishes reasons for action from incentives, and draws on contemporary analyses of counterfactual conditionals. The book also includes a procedure for identifying strategic equilibria in ideal normal-form games. In synthesizing (...)
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  25. Rousseau on proportional majority rule.Paul Weirich - 1986 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (1):111-126.
  26.  27
    (1 other version)Decisions in Dynamic Settings.Paul Weirich - 1986 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986:438 - 449.
    In a decision problem with a dynamic setting there is at least one option whose realization would change the expected utilities of options by changing the probability or utility function with respect to which the expected utilities of options are computed. A familiar example is Newcomb's problem. William Harper proposes a generalization of causal decision theory intended to cover all decision problems with dynamic settings, not just Newcomb's problem. His generalization uses Richard Jeffrey's ideas on ratifiability, and material from game (...)
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  27.  82
    Utility and framing.Paul Weirich - 2010 - Synthese 176 (1):83 - 103.
    Standard principles of rational decision assume that an option's utility is both comprehensive and accessible. These features constrain interpretations of an option's utility. This essay presents a way of understanding utility and laws of utility. It explains the relation between an option's utility and its outcome's utility and argues that an option's utility is relative to a specification of the option. Utility's relativity explains how a decision problem's framing affects an option's utility and its rationality even for an agent who (...)
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  28.  32
    Decisions without Sharp Probabilities.Paul Weirich - 2015 - Philosophia Scientiae 19:213-225.
    Adam Elga [Elga 2010] argues that no principle of rationality leads from unsharp probabilities to decisions. He concludes that a perfectly rational agent does not have unsharp probabilities. This paper defends unsharp probabilities. It shows how unsharp probabilities may ground rational decisions.
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  29.  17
    Conditionalization and Evidence.Paul Weirich - 1979 - Journal of Critical Analysis 8 (1):15-18.
  30.  43
    Decision When Desires Are Uncertain.Paul Weirich - 1981 - Bowling Green Studies in Applied Philosophy 3:69-75.
    An agent in a decision problem may not know the goals that should guide selection of an option. Accommodating this ignorance require methods that supplement expected utility theory.
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  31. Preference.Paul Weirich - 2013 - In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell.
    Decision theory relies on an account of preference. Some accounts are behaviorist and others are mentalistic. The account used affects the explanatory power of decision theory.
     
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  32.  96
    Collective acts.Paul Weirich - 2012 - Synthese 187 (1):223-241.
    Groups of people perform acts. For example, a committee passes a resolution, a team wins a game, and an orchestra performs a symphony. These collective acts may be evaluated for rationality. Take a committee’s passing a resolution. This act may be evaluated not only for fairness but also for rationality. Did it take account of all available information? Is the resolution consistent with the committee’s past resolutions? Standards of collective rationality apply to collective acts, that is, acts that groups of (...)
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  33.  22
    Thinking about Acting: Logical Foundations for Rational Decision Making - by John L. Pollock.Paul Weirich - 2007 - Philosophical Books 48 (3):283-285.
    This book review describes and evaluates John Pollock's view about rational decision-making.
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  34.  15
    (1 other version)AFTERWORDS Criticism and Countertheses.Paul Weirich - 1981 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 40 (3):327-328.
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  35.  46
    Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, et l'economie politique.Paul Weirich - 1996 - Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 8 (1):40-53.
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  36.  45
    A game-theoretic comparison of the utilitarian and maximin rules of social choice.Paul Weirich - 1988 - Erkenntnis 28 (1):117 - 133.
    I will characterize the utilitarian and maximin rules of social choice game-theoretically. That is, I will introduce games whose solutions are the utilitarian and maximin distributions respectively. Then I will compare the rules by exploring similarities and differences between these games. This method of comparison has been carried out by others. But I characterize the two rules using games that involve bargaining within power structures. This new characterization better highlights the ethical differences between the rules.
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  37.  33
    Adam Morton on Dilemmas.Paul Weirich - 1994 - Dialogue 33 (1):95.
    Adam Morton offers a novel approach to making decisions. This review describes and evaluates his innovations.
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  38.  39
    (1 other version)Calibration.Paul Weirich - 2011 - In Henk W. De Regt, Stephan Hartmann & Samir Okasha (eds.), EPSA Philosophy of Science: Amsterdam 2009. Springer. pp. 415–425.
    Abner Shimony (1988) argues that degrees of belief satisfy the axioms of probability because their epistemic goal is to match estimates of objective probabilities. Because the estimates obey the axioms of probability, degrees of belief must also obey them to reach their epistemic goal. This calibration argument meets some objections, but with a few revisions it can surmount those objections. It offers a good alternative to the Dutch book argument for compliance with the probability axioms. The defense of Shimony's calibration (...)
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  39.  11
    Contractiarianism and Bargaining Theory.Paul Weirich - 1991 - Journal of Philosophical Research 16:369-385.
    Classical bargaining theory attempts to solve a bargaining problem using only the information about the problem contained in the representation of its possible outcomes in utility space. However, this information usually underdetermines the solution. I use additional information about interpersonal comparisons of utility and bargaining power. The solution is then the outcome that maximizes the sum of power-weighted utilities. I use these results to advance a contractarian argument for a utilitarian form of social cooperation. As the original position, I propose (...)
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  40.  31
    Coordination and Hyperrationality.Paul Weirich - 2018 - ProtoSociology 35:197-214.
    Margaret Gilbert (1990) argues that although the rationality of the agents in a standard coordination problem does not suffice for their coordination, a social convention of coordination, understood as the agents’ joint acceptance of a principle requiring their coordination, does the job. Gilbert’s argument targets agents rational in the game-theoretic sense, which following Sobel (1994: Chap. 14), I call hyperrational agents. I agree that hyperrational agents may fail to coordinate in some cases despite the obvious benefits of coordination. However, I (...)
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  41.  81
    Conventions and social institutions.Paul Weirich - 1989 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 27 (4):599-618.
    This essay examines views of convention advanced by David Lewis and Margaret Gilbert.
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  42. Cristina Bicchieri, Richard Jeffrey, and Brian Skyrms, eds., The Dynamics of Norms Reviewed by.Paul Weirich - 1997 - Philosophy in Review 17 (6):388-390.
     
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  43. Colin Howson and Peter Urbach, Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach Reviewed by.Paul Weirich - 1991 - Philosophy in Review 11 (1):36-38.
     
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  44.  36
    Change in the Decision Sciences.Paul Weirich - 2018 - Lato Sensu: Revue de la Société de Philosophie des Sciences 5 (1):13-19.
    A common type of change in science occurs as theorists generalize a model of a phenomenon by removing some idealizations of the model. This type of change occurs in the decision sciences and also in the normative branch of the decision sciences that treats rational choice. After presenting a general ac-count of model generalization, the paper illustrates generalization of models in normative decision theory. The principal illustration generalizes a standard model of rational choice by removing the idealization that deliberation has (...)
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  45.  16
    Comments on Ellis’ “What Economists (and Everyone Else) Should Think About Utility Theory”.Paul Weirich - 2002 - Southwest Philosophy Review 18 (2):117-120.
  46.  80
    Computer simulations in game theory.Paul Weirich - manuscript
    A computer simulation runs a model generating a phenomenon under investigation. For the simulation to be explanatory, the model has to be explanatory. The model must be isomorphic to the natural system that realizes the phenomenon. This paper elaborates the method of assessing a simulation's explanatory power. Then it illustrates the method by applying it to two simulations in game theory. The first is Brian Skyrms's (1990) simulation of interactive deliberations. It is intended to explain the emergence of a Nash (...)
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  47.  20
    Does collective rationality entail efficiency?Paul Weirich - 2010 - Logic Journal of the IGPL 18 (2):308-322.
    Collective rationality in its ordinary sense is rationality’s extension to groups. It does not entail efficiency by definition. Showing that it entails efficiency requires a normative argument. Game theorists treating cooperative games generally assume that collective rationality entails efficiency, but formulating the reasoning that leads individuals to efficiency, and verifying the rationality of its steps, presents challenging philosophical issues. This paper constructs a framework for addressing those issues and reaches some preliminary results about the prospects of rational agents achieving efficiency (...)
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  48.  22
    Decisions to follow a rule.Paul Weirich - 2002 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (2):280-281.
    Rachlin favors following patterns over making decisions case by case. However, his accounts of self-control and altruism do not establish the rationality of making decisions according to patterns. The best arguments for using patterns as a standard of evaluation appeal to savings in cognitive costs and compensation for irrational dispositions. What the arguments show depends on how they are elaborated and refined.
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  49.  64
    Exclusion from the social contract.Paul Weirich - 2011 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 10 (2):148-169.
    Does rational bargaining yield a social contract that is efficient and so inclusive? A core allocation, that is, an allocation that gives each coalition at least as much as it can get on its own, is efficient. However, some coalitional games lack a core allocation, so rationality does not require one in those games. Does rationality therefore permit exclusion from the social contract? I replace realization of a core allocation with another type of equilibrium achievable in every coalitional game. Fully (...)
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  50.  25
    From rationality to coordination.Paul Weirich - 2003 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (2):179-180.
    Game theory's paradoxes stimulate the study of rationality. Sometimes they motivate the revising of standard principles of rationality. Other times they call for revising applications of those principles or introducing supplementary principles of rationality. I maintain that rationality adjusts its demands to circumstances, and in ideal games of coordination it yields a payoff-dominant equilibrium.
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